DELORME INREACH – GEAR REVIEW

While your average smartphone is great in places where people drink lattes (the 10% of the world that has cell phone coverage), with inReach you’re connected everywhere. Whether you’re crossing Antarctica or the Sahara, you’ll have reliable coverage on the other 90% of the earth — with the world’s only truly global network. Simply install the free DeLorme Earthmate app, and transform your smartphone or tablet into a two-way text-messaging global communications device and a GPS viewer (with the latest terrain and road details).

In our case we are only heading south to Argentina, but since we were going without any cell coverage we may as well have been crossing the Sahara.

The InReach gives you the capability, through the Iridium network, to track your location and post it online. You can share it with the public or just with your friends and family. With the use of your smart phone you can also send and recieve texts, emails, and update your social media all while sitting on that remote beach in the middle of nowhere. No cell network or wifi needed. The InReach also has an SOS option. If you’re in a remote location and a serious problem occurs you can press the button and the local search and rescue or authorities will come find you. We’re obviously very happy that we didn’t need to try out that function.

Our favourite part of the InReach 2-Way Satellite Communicator gives you the option of posting your current location on your website or blog. This is where your friends and family can go to see your exact location.

Those are the messages you’ll get when you have a DeLorme inReach. A great thing about this system is that you can actually recieve these messages and respond instead of having parents worring at home about you and your unknown location. Using the Earthmate app we’re able to text back and say, “No mom, we’re just on an epic remote beach in Baja. We’re relaxing, eating fresh seafood, meeting other travellers, and see no reason to leave. Make note of the GPS coordinates and come for a visit.”

WHY DID WE BUY ONE IN THE FIRST PLACE? To keep our parents happy is the short answer. When they asked what our route was and we said, “South” they were not comforted. There was no plan, no way other than email for people to get in touch with us, and no schedule. Since we weren’t going to have cell phones service and we weren’t sure how often we would have wifi connections we thought this would be the easiest way to stay in contact with everyone back home.

HOW DID YOU LIKE IT? After eight months of use everyone was happy. Our families kept close watch of our current location and we were able to let them know what our plans were. We did this with direct text messages and also by just updated our Facebook status through the Earthmate app. The piece of mind this gave us and our family while we were in remote locations was worth every penny. We will definitely be using it again for our South American leg of our journey.

WHAT WILL YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME? We definitely will be buying a 12v car adapter so we can leave it on all the time while driving to track our route. The InReach goes through AA batteries quite quickly and we’d like to save them for when we’re backpacking and away from the truck.

Want to help us out a bit? Click on our Amazon affiliate length below when buying your Delorme InReach and we get a small percentage of the sale. Thanks!

For more info, here’s the short list of info from Delorme:

Wireless Pairing

Connect wirelessly via Bluetooth

Messaging

Compose email or SMS address on the fly, or select from your phone contacts

Compose and send messages up to 160 characters

View incoming messages

Post to Facebook, Twitter, or your own shared map

Interactive SOS

Describe your situation in detail to improve emergency response

Stay in touch for mutual status updates on your situation

Automatic location tracking

Follow Me/Find Me Tracking and Location

User-selected tracking interval (10 minutes to 4 hours)

GPS position accuracy to within 5 meters

View tracking breadcrumbs online

Navigate

Navigate with confidence using DeLorme Topo North America maps, DeLorme Digital Atlas of the Earth maps or NOAA Charts